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SEATTLE -- As president of Summit Bank, James Bishop II joined in his father's lies to federal regulators.

Together, the pair tried to hide the dying bank's bad debts from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. They succeeded in that for a time, but were discovered after the bank failed in 2011.

Now, the younger Bishop will be joining his father in federal prison. Set to be sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court, the 43-year-old faces up to 2 ½ years in custody.

Charged in August alongside his father, Bishop II lied in reports to the FDIC in an effort to hide the bank's mortgage losses from the government insurer. Bishop and his father, bank CEO James E. Bishop, hid failing loans to make Summit appear viable, likely delaying government action by doing so.

The elder Bishop was previously sentenced three years in prison after pleading guilty to a single criminal count related to the scheme. Bishop II pleaded guilty to a single felony count and is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman.

Writing the court, attorneys for Bishop II paint him as a man pushed into fraud by his implacable father. They've asked that he be sentenced to one year in federal prison for his role in the fraud.

For his part, the younger Bishop acknowledged his fraud has cut him out of the business and industry into which he was born.

"My family has a long history in the banking business, which I eagerly followed," the father of two said in a letter to the court. "I hoped that someday in the future my children could join me and build on the family legacy. Now that legacy has died."

In a memo to the court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Diggs said the Bishops had hoped to ride out the downturn that claimed Washington Mutual and at least a dozen other Washington state banks. His family fortune was tied up in the bank, which his father acquired years before after leaving the other family business, Skagit State Bank.

"The defendant sought to deceive the regulators, so that his family's bank would stay open long enough to recoup losses on bad loans when the economy ultimately turned around," said Diggs, arguing that Bishop II receive a 2 ½-year prison term.

Regulators first raised concerns with the Bishops in late 2008 and, in June 2010, forced the bank into an agreement prohibiting it from lending more money to borrowers who were failing to pay their debts. No new credit was to be extended to borrowers who had past-due accounts.

Summit's finances continued to sink in the months following the agreement. State regulators working with the FDIC shuttered the bank 0n May 20, 2011.

Federal prosecutors contend the Bishops hid millions of dollars in past-due loans from federal and state regulators. Doing so didn't sink the bank - bad mortgages would almost certainly have done that on their own - or create the $15.7 million loss to the FDIC, but the conspiracy kept regulators from acting earlier.

"Our economy depends on every bank following the rules. Banking rules protect individual depositors as well as our financial system," U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan said previously in a statement. "These defendants - both experienced bankers - took a myriad of steps to hide the true financial condition of Summit Bank from federal and state regulators."

A year before the bank was closed, the Bishops told regulators the bank had only $6 million in outstanding past-due loans. In fact, the bank held more than twice that amount in bad loans.

Working in concert, the Bishops overdrew customers' checking accounts to pay their past-due loans in order to hide the extent of the trouble at the bank. They are also alleged to have changed the terms of loans or extended new loans to overdue borrowers to hide the bad debts.

In addition to lying to regulators, the Bishops hid delinquent loans from the Summit Bank board. According to prosecutors, the men also went so far as to use collateral offered to cover new loans to repay past-due loans, without the borrowers' signing off.

The younger Bishop was born into banking. His father, grandfather and aunt all worked at the family business - Skagit State Bank, which his grandfather founded and his aunt continues to lead.

Known to friends as "J2" and "Little Jim," Bishop II was raised in Skagit County and ultimately went to work at Skagit State Bank after graduating from Western Washington University. Bishop II went along in 2004 when his father left the Burlington-based bank and bought Bank of Concrete, which he renamed Summit Bank.

Serving a community that had been rapidly expanding before the housing bubble burst, Summit was hit hard in the downturn. The Bishops' attempts to keep the bank afloat - infusions of their personal wealth, as well as the fraud that'll see both sent to prison - failed to match the task at hand.

The collapse cost Bishop II and his family $8 million, defense attorneys Robert Chadwell and Krista Bush said in a memo to the court. Since then, he's been getting by on a family trust fund that is nearly exhausted; he put his total assets at $270,600.

"While the title of 'former bank president' may imply financial resources, in this case, any such implication is false," the private attorneys said in court papers. "Mr. Bishop is, after working 60 hours a week for 20 years, without the necessary resources to provide for his family."

Other Summit employees described Bishop II as being entirely under his father's control. "J1," one said, "ran the show" while "J2" took orders. Another colleague described Bishop II as "terrified of his father."

In a letter to the court, Bishop II lamented the loss of his family's legacy while contending his aim during the fraud was to protect the bank customers.

"Since I knew, and had known, many of these bank customers for some time, I viewed my actions as being motivated by good intentions, not bad," the father of two said in a letter to the court. "At the time, the economic conditions were changing so rapidly that I felt like a dog chasing my tail trying to keep up and react.

"In hindsight, I see that I went about everything in the wrong way and, in the process, achieved none of my goals."

Diggs disputed that claim, noting that no banker can credibly claim "providing a larger loan to a borrower who already could not pay an existing loan is in the best interest of the bank or the borrowers."

"It is simply a means to deceive regulators," the prosecutor told the court.

Diggs agreed the elder Bishop devised the scheme and stood to gain the most from the lies they told. Still, Bishop II stood to gain from his father's plan and was instrumental in pulling it off.

"By any measure, this was extensive criminal conduct, and Bishop II was at its forefront, directing the conduct of others," Diggs said in a memo to the court.

Bishop II "was the bank's president, but witnesses uniformly told the government that James E. Bishop ran the Bank, and was the ultimate decision maker," the prosecutor continued. "Additionally, as founder and CEO of the Bank, and its predominant shareholder, James E. Bishop likely had a greater emotional and financial stake in the success of the bank than his son."

Diggs went on to argue that Bishop II was aware he and his father were undertaking a "high-stakes shell game." Two decades in the business should have given him time to learn not to lie to regulators, Diggs argued.

In addition to a prison term, if one is imposed, Bishop II will be required to pay $175,000 to the FDIC in fines. Like his father, he has also agreed to never work in banking again.

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